The Girl Without A Time
by angyelsglaive
Summary: Negi and his group went back and changed the outcome of the Festival with a few days to act. What kind of changes did Chao make in two years? What was the class like without Chao? Will she even recognize the future she returns to? *SPOILERS to Chapter 18*


Disclaimer: I don't own Negima or any of the characters. I'm just playing around in a part of the sandbox that seems to have been left alone.

TGWATTGWAWTTGWAT

I hold my smile as my Cassiopeia rips a hole in time and allows me to fall through it, leaving everyone and everything I've known for the past two years, a time which has been heaven for me. As I drop into the time stream – for as long a jump as I'm making, I'm able to perceive the journey – the tears begin to fall. I cry for everything I'm leaving behind, for all my friends, my family, the daughter I created with the help of Satomi and Eva; sobs rack my body even as the fear I've been staving off for so long wraps its tendrils around my heart and squeezes. I told everyone I was going home, but they should have known better. They told me they changed the course of events by travelling to the past and creating the Festival game, fighting me head on; they should have realized what that meant for the future I came from. Despite my words to Negi-bozu (as opposed to Greatest-Grandda), I know I am not returning home. My home was lost to me as a new future splintered off upon my arrival and interaction with the past, but I view that as the price to keep some other Chao, along with my cousins, safe from the experiments that branded my flesh and turned me into what I am. I don't even know if 'Chao Arnathiana Springfield Lingshen' has been born, but I know I'm not her anymore. I gave up that name and that honor when I sent myself back in time. I'm just Chao Lingshen now. I just didn't want anyone to suffer as I did.

I'm scared at what I'll find. I know that they'll be waiting for me. Eva most assuredly will be there, unless someone has managed to kill her this time around. They certainly hadn't in my time. Negi will likely be there as well, although knowing the life my greatest Grandfather (a joke that one of the cousins came up with since he hated being called 'great-great-grandfather') lived, he may not be there now. He certainly knows now that _something_ happened to me, and if events happened again as they had for me, I know that this time they will find 'Chao' and all the rest. Chacha-chan will be there as well – someone I never knew, for she didn't exist without my help.

It's strange, and it scares me, how much changed so fast. I pushed things with the tournament, I knew, but…damn it, the Tree! I don't understand. The Tree went into its active cycle a year early. Why? What changed? It wasn't just me, I know that. If anything, my activities would have drained power. Why did it become active a year before I was truly ready? Was it the will of magic? Was it because of Negi and his Cassiopeia?

The will of Magic is strong, I know. Magic isn't sentient or intelligent, but it has a will, and an instinct for good. People who preach about balance don't understand anything at all. Was it the will of Magic to allow Negi to act as he did through the Festival, to be so much to so many of my classmates? Did the will of Magic wish to truly unite our class?

Izumi Ako was never supposed to be on that stage, you know. I knew the history of every single member of my class. She panicked and missed her chance, and the Cheer trio had to cancel their performance. She left Mahora before the festival was even over, too ashamed of herself to face her classmates again; the Cheer trio and the Sports trio were forever at odds after that. When I saw the video feed of Dekopin Rocket on stage, my heart almost stopped. I realized I was totally flying blind, that so much had changed that I truly could not predict a thing.

I have no idea how much has changed. Yuna was never exposed to magic in my world, but I know she was on the forefront of the Festival battle. Once someone with magic in their blood it touched by it, they cannot go back. Chisame was drawn in to fight our cyber attacks here, making a Pactio with Negi, but in my world she transferred out to a different high school, tired of the strangeness surrounding our class. Everyone has been touched in little ways, and the sum total of it is likely to completely change my world.

I see the light as I near the end of my journey. Hopefully I've left myself enough time that I can make the right choice when it comes to what comes next.

TGWATTGWATTGWAT

**Author Notes:**

Yes, it's a short prologue flavored chapter. And it's not a chapter of FTP, or anything Macross. This idea has been bouncing around in my head for months, and was being loud enough that I needed to get it out to have any hope of working on anything else. Chao fascinates me, especially with the fact that she chooses to return to a future _knowing_ that she's thrown causality for a bender. I have two or three different directions I can take this; I'm debating which one to choose.

Hopefully more FTP soon.


End file.
